Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Madam, you have bereft me of all words.Only my blood speaks to you in my veins,And there is such confusion in my powersAs after some oration finally spokeBy a beloved prince, there doth appearAmong the buzzing pleased multitude,Where every something being blent togetherTurns to a wild nothing save of joyExpressed and not expressed.

William Shakespeare

We are reading this play in my Shakespeare class, and this small exerpt leapt straight into my mind and hasn't left since. It is such a gem, a pure distillation of love. Oh gorgeous.

THIS poem mentions one of my great fantasies that I have not been able to shut up about over the last couple of months. No, I am not talkiing about making love after looking at the stars, but seeing the stars as they are without light pollution. I love the idea of getting wasted in the desert and shouting at the moon, of the presence of a loved one when he is gone, of playing with ideas of warmth and coldness, warmth among coldness...

Monday, September 11, 2006

He was reading late, at Richard's, down in Maine,aged 32? Richard & Helen long in bed,my good wife long in bed.All I had to do was strip & get into my bed,putting the marker in the book, & sleep,& wake to a hot breakfast.

Off the coast was an island, P'tit Manaan,the bluff from Richard's lawn was almost sheer.A chill at four o'clock.It only takes a few minutes to make a man.A concentration upon now & here.Suddenly, unlike Bach,

& horribly, unlike Bach, it occured to me that one night, instead of warm pajamas,I'd take off all my clothes& cross the damp cold lawn & down the bluffinto the terrible water & walk forever under it toward the island.

John Berryman 1972

ALSO see the March 2006 archive for another poem from The Dream Songs that I love love love. I really will write on this blog again, but it may not be for a while.